


such selfish prayers

by thescyfychannel



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bloodplay, Boats and Ships, Bulge Sucking (Homestuck), Bulges and Nooks (Homestuck), Coercion, Consent Issues, Dubious Consent, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Face-Fucking, First Time, Fishing Nets, Gun Kink, Gunplay, Hemocaste Dynamics (Homestuck), Knifeplay, M/M, Multi, Oral Sex, Ritual Sex, Rough Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Seadwelling Trolls (Homestuck), Sexual Coercion, Spitroasting, Troll Fins (Homestuck), Troll Gills (Homestuck)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-24 03:31:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20351680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescyfychannel/pseuds/thescyfychannel
Summary: Feferi knows her place in the Empire, and she's been perfectly content to carry on handling the diplomatic side of the small corner relegated to seadwellers under the reign of the incredibly kind and benevolent Jadeblooded Empress.Someonehas to, it's not like Meenah will wake up overday with a complete personality transfusion and a complete lack of interest in riling up both their enemies and closest allies.Unfortunately for Feferi's plans, both Meenah and the ocean have different ideas. Besides, everyone knows—no plan survives first contact with the enemy.





	such selfish prayers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [auxanges](https://archiveofourown.org/users/auxanges/gifts).

> "It's piratestuck babey. I pitched this to my fiancée who had all their prompts picked so its mine now!!!!
> 
> Eridan and Cronus (who can be a Thing™ if you're writing trolls, or hell if you're not writing trolls. who am i to be ur jury) are swashing and buckling and shit. Enter one (1) Feferi, who is brought aboard to appease sea spirits. She's flipping a tit thinking they're straight up going to virgin sacrifice her or something but no, it's a whole sexy thing. Amazing
> 
> Bloodplay and knives/guns are great! Rough sex is great! Aftercare? So fucking great!"
> 
> This might miss a couple notes, but I hope it still counts. There's a lot of lore buried in here that I didn't get to explore, and if I ever come back to this universe, I might focus more attention there. Or find an excuse to send erifefcro right into the thick of it.

_It's 12439 and long may the Nephrite Empress reign. Under her benevolent rule, our world has expanded to cover even the furthest reaches of the planet, with exploration into the greater space made possible, and treaties with all the worlds around us forthcoming. Her foresight, stewardship, and—_

"Look," Meenah cuts you off. She's draped off one end of the couch, her braids swinging little circles just above the floor. "I get that you've got this whole, hot for beacher thing going on, boat you don't gotta keep up the act when it's just you and me."

Your fins flare pink, and you carefully set the book down on the table. "Orcay, _one_, it's not an act, and _two_, I'm not—naut _that_. That thing!"

She rolls over onto her front to flip her fins at you in a cross between amusement and consternation that you're very familiar with. "Oh my cod, gill, you can _say_ the word. Actshelly, you can go ahead and pail him, too! You're a princess, not a glubbing _virgin_."

This is Meenah Peixes, your elder linemate and best friend. Unfortunately, she's also the greatest aggravation in your life—things in your kingdom _have_ gotten better under the new Empress' reign (and you think it's kind of funny, that to most of the trolls in your kingdom, it's a _new_ reign), and you don't have to fight the other tyrians to the death for a stupid glubbing crown, but some things (like how _annoying_ your linemate can be when she sets her mind to it) never change—and tonight is no exception.

"Yep," you say, your eyes firmly on the book, even feeling Meenah's narrow on your back.

"_No._"

"This is definitely not what I had in mind when I said we should study together," you tell her, slapping your hands down on the desk. "Meenah, it doesn't even matter! I'm studying for _me_, and for the _kingdom_, not to impress any one perchticular perchson!"

"Double perch!" Meenah's practically crowing "That's ten points to me."

Shit! Fuck! Shitfuck! You'd all but forgotten about that stupid old game a couple of sweeps ago, all the intricate rules the two of you had set up to expand your knowledge of the fish that swam through the seas and deeps, but apparently, Meenah hasn't. "What? No, that doesn't count!"

"Too late! I hit a thou_sand_ first, _and_ I awlready know what I arowanna do with them!"

"Great," you say, because in the face of Meenah's enthusiasm, there's not all that much else to say. You're already mentally composing an apology note to your tutor. "Shoal, uh. What _exactly_ do you arowanna do?"

* * *

It is apparently _not_ what Meenah wants to arowanna do as much as it's about what she wants _you_ to do.

"You have _nebber_ done your Luminance! And now is tidally perchfect for it, you'll be trout and about when the moon jellies do their annual glow, _sand_ I heard there might be a sea turtle hatching, too!" Your linemate had waxed rhapsodic about all of the benefits to doing the traditional deeps-bound dive (and subsequent full day underwater swim) right glubbing now, and, with camaraderie and inter-line bonding and even tradition hanging over you, you don't have the heart to refuse.

Instead, you let Meenah walk you down to the nearest cove, enjoying the starlight as you watch the turtles hatch together. You brush your fingertips and toes over a jelly as they brighten and dim their soft sea glow.

And then you strip down naked and let her paint your caste's biolum paint patterns and markings onto your skin, spelling out your history from all the sweeps past. It's a quasi-religious tradition, something that almost every seadweller (especially those of your line) has experienced, and an event you've been putting off for far too long. Meenah's opinion. Not yours.

In _your_ opinion, you're a busy princess who's got a lot on her plate and in her thinkpan, and no space for old traditions that could be observed at a later point in time anyway.

Unfortunately for you, Meenah disagrees.

"How long shoald I be trout here again?" This, a sentence usually said in your normal voice, is called almost halfway across the bay, to Meenah's far off perch.

"Naut bad, gill!" She's leaning over the edge of her rock, braids skimming the waves. "But it's nofin close to what you'll need to do to endear yourshellf to me moray. I bereef you'll need to be 'trout here' for the ENTIRE tradiseaonal period. Got it?"

You heave a thoroughly resigned sigh, as if casting it out will _somehow_ ease the burden balanced on your own two shoulders, and give your linemate a wave. "Fin, fin. I'll sea you whenebber, I _guess_."

Meenah salutes you with her fins and a cocky grin as you leap, and, midair, you flip her off in reply. "Don't hurry back!" is the absolute last thing you hear you hear before the water closes around you, taking you down to the furthest deeps.

* * *

The Luminance, you'll admit, is a fairly beautiful thing. Your own light casts strange shadows across the walls of water around you, the moon is a picture perfect pink in the night sky, the jellies are barely beginning to dim their own glow—it's exactly the right time for such a dive, and, if you weren't planning on saving your sulks for _after_ the experience, you'd make a mental note to thank Meenah for picking such a wonderful night for it.

Instead, you open up your gills to the water and yourself to the experience, following a faint tug of instinct inwards and downwards, into the deepest sea of your dreams. Stories upon stories are scrawled across your skin, much as they're written on the very currents you now drift, the very sights your well-adapted eyes can barely see.

And, all of a sudden, it's no longer just _the_ Luminance, the tradition you've read about in so many books, it's _your_ Luminance, and you think that maybe, _maybe_, you get it.

* * *

And then all too quickly, it's morning again.

You're a damn sight further out from shore than you ever thought you'd be on such a brief swim and dive, but you don't really mind. Meenah's let you off the leash for a while, which means you have time to explore everything, hidden away from the burning of the daylight. The ocean's always been a safe haven for your kind, and you don't think that's ever likely to change.

Famous last words, really.

Only, you don't know that yet.

By the standard terms of a Luminance, you have all of the day to explore and play, with an expectation that you'd start meandering your way back some time after the sun's completely set. The lore holds that such a timeframe allows proper opportunity to share your joy at discovery and reinforced respect back to the sea that brought them both, but according to Meenah, it was something "moray pike awl these trolls getting nightdrunk offa the good shit you eel from the swim and the Dive".

Now that you'd done it for yourself, you couldn't really find the words to argue. You _did_ feel nightdrunk, and that was a hell of a lot of good shit to get from just one dive. Not that you were complaining—it had been absolutely amazing, and you were partially wishing you had an excuse to do another deep dive soon—but it would've been nice to know from a slightly more reputable source than your thoroughly disreputable linemate that you'd be feeling three fish to the current.

Sunset starts to colour the water after a long day, and a laugh bubbles out of you at the sight of it. It's beautiful, really and truly so, and you bask in the feeling of fading warmth and brilliant light, absolutely enraptured by the way the world moves around you. Now, you decide, is the right time to start heading home.

And that, of course, is when the other shoe—or in this case, net—drops.

* * *

Net traps were one of the first things a seadweller learned, and therefore, one of the first things a seadweller studied how to get out of. There were several different common types, all suited to different types of prey, but the ones that preyed on seadwellers were far more rare (and, consequently, much more difficult to evade). This is a type that you've never even seen, and a panicked trill spills out of you as it wraps itself tighter around you with each movement you make.

Whoever made it knows their craft: They've used spun seasilk, instead of a barbed net, but it keeps you just as tied (perhaps even more so). They've arranged their knots in an intricate fashion that makes it all the harder to try untying them all in one go. And, worst of all—they've set the whole damn thing _right_ over where any sensible seadweller would usually try to swim without thinking about what's around them.

There is nothing you can do but submit to the inevitable, let yourself be dragged up to the surface while you remain in this awful trap, and hope an opportunity presents itself for your escape. Chances might be slim and growing slimmer, but if you're lucky, you'll end up dealing with a seaborn who knows of you and has no desire to face an ignominious sort of fate. You're completely sure that if it comes to a full trial, Meenah will back you.

"Deeps damn me," someone swears in soft violet, their voice an uncertain distance above your head. "We caught ourselves a tyrian, Danny boy."

* * *

You're tangled up in the net, with two violets looking over you, their work-rough hands curious and questing. "She's on her Luminance, Cro," one says. The younger looking one, which would make him the "Danny boy" previously mentioned. Your markings have rubbed off on so many different parts of the net, but you're still painted enough to make it easier for them to have a go at reading you. "Might be perfect for this, don't you think?"

Cro looks down at you, frowning slightly. "Are you so sure? We need the right sacrifice for this ritual, aye? Don't you think it's a gamble, taking her for this?" A ritual? A _sacrifice_? You start struggling, trying to see if you can break through the net with no luck.

"Nope," says Danny, leaning down almost in your reach. You bare your fangs, trying to snap at him, and he grins. "She's _perfect_."

His tone of voice would have been enough to make you shrink back from him, but there's a certain hungry look in his eyes that has you desperately trying to remember every detail of every ritual that you've ever heard of. "I demand that you both let me go this very instant."

"Nah, princess," says the older one, and you bite back on a groan once you realize that the markings designating your exact rank were still visible to them at some point, even if they might not be now. "We're becalmed, and we definitely need something to appease the spirits of this particular sea. You'll help us with that quite well, I believe."

"Over my—" You cut yourself off before you can give them any ideas. It's not like they aren't already planning on turning you into a dead body. "You wouldn't dare harm me. My linemate would hunt you down, and you _really_ wouldn't like the end result."

"We're Amporas, sweetheart." Danny crouches down and you can feel the cold press of a knife against your hip. "Not much we don't dare, and not much we like all too well."

"Think we'll like you, though," Cro murmurs, his lips brushing over your earfin. You shudder, flattening it out of his reach, your hands tightening on the ropes of the net wrapped so thoroughly around them. "Sensitive, are we? Haven't done this all that much?"

"Shut up!"

He sits back on his heels, amusement dancing in his eyes. "Why, Danny, I think we have ourselves a virgin! That ought to make the sacrifice even sweeter, don't you think?"

"Damn," Danny says, and it's in such a way that you could call it agreement, that you might mistake it for a prayer. "Aye, that'd do it, to be sure." The flat of his blade moves higher, over your thigh, and you're about to whimper when you feel the unmistakable loosening of a net that's been partially cut. Fuck _yes_. You can take advantage of this.

Years of training against Meenah, against the finest the Kingdom _and_ the Empire had to offer, have left you in excellent position to make use of any openings. You're an expert, and it's depressingly simple to shift your foot into place for a kick the second Ampora cuts you enough room. The first Ampora's occupied, something glinting in his hands, and you turn your attention back to Danny, waiting patiently for the next few mistakes that will set you free.

And then you feel cold steel pressed against your fin and realize that _you_ have made the crucial mistake.

You never, _never_, should have forgotten about Cro.

"Your call, Eridan_ Ampora_. I'm feeling generous today." Gunmetal is hell on fins in a way that most trolls wouldn't expect. All of your senses are on alert, you've got a feeling (a full name pulled out during their little game, and the emphasis on it) that things are more tangled than they seem and when Danny—no, it's _Eridan_, apparently—drags his knife over your inner thigh, you cry out, barely remembering yourself enough to hold still, to not jerk. "Ah _ha_. Suppose I shouldn't be surprised, then, the way you've been looking at her."

"Can you blame me?" Another cut's added close after the first, and you twist your hands into the net and grip, wanting nothing more than to writhe under his blade, knowing very well all the reasons you shouldn't or couldn't. "Your hands were shaped just the same as mine, _Cronus_."

So now you have two names and no damn way to use them. Cronus Ampora, not Cro, is as good a shot with his left as his right. At least, you assume he is, by the easy way he flips the gun up in the air and catches it left handed, by the confident way he presses it your untouched fin, by the steady way he holds it even as he takes up his own knife to add a few more slices to the net. "Waste of good material," you mumble, distracted by the way they're staining your skin pink. You don't dare risk healing. Not when you're dealing with seadwellers like these.

Cronus laughs, and the gun drags down your cheek, presses to your lips. "You're worth it, doll. Go on, then."

Even being this dizzy-dazed doesn't stop a humiliated blush from crawling up your fins and face. You have a go at pinning him with a glare, and he raises an eyebrow in return, a momentary amused look before he shifts his knife downwards, downward, downwards—_fuck, not your gills_.

You're untutored in this (much to your dismay and your linemate's amusement and now, the Amporas' interest), but you _try_, dragging your tongue up the barrel of the gun, whimpering every time Eridan's blade bites too deep. "She's not half bad at this for a beginner," Eridan says, pausing to stare at you. His attention nearly makes your fins flare, indignation roused by the way he's staring, but Cronus is quick to drag your attention back, pushing the gun past teeth and lips until you're choking on it.

"Not half bad, and she'll learn to be better." His voice practically drips with sea song and, horror of horrors, you can feel your own deeps damned body reacting to it, to the attention, to the curving trails of your own blood running down your body. Eridan's pleased noise at the sight of your bulge spilling out of its sheath hits all the right frequencies to rouse a seadweller's attention, and you give Cronus a desperate, pitiable look. "None of that, princess. Dan, check how much of that is blood. See if she's starting spilling slurry yet."

"_Deeps_," he replies, tone almost reverent. "Shall I give her a try, then?"

Cronus' exasperated sigh at his enthusiasm is one you yourself have heard the fuchsia equivalent of many a time, but you're too distracted to be amused. Their nets still have a grip on you, but you're too concerned about their weapons to care about bindings. Their weapons—shit, okay, he's said something. "—slow, if you're not gonna prep."

"Fine, fine." Context becomes much more necessary when he rears back to haul his shirt off, baring even more ink and scars than you'd first assumed, and, well. You're not _dead_, okay? And Amporas are apparently absolute fucking _paragons_ of seadweller beauty.

Then context becomes actually _clear_ when he gets his pants half-undone and you're faced with the sight of a thick bulge, coloured the deepest violet you've ever seen. Any attempts at squirming, writhing, or struggling free seem to have been anticipated by Cronus, who immediately puts a halt to them via the flat of his blade against your gills. Dealing with silent threats is not exactly your forte and in this case, where you can't tell what's empty and what's real, your downfall.

Eridan ignores loose rope and tight-wrapped net, shifting you up onto his lap and leaning forward. You're keenly aware of the way his arm brushes against your side, from where he's braced his hand on the deck, of the careful-not way he grips your hips, like he's trying at a promise and threat all at once. He wants to break you; he's so sure you're breakable that he has to handle you with care.

You'd snarl at him if it weren't for his bulge curling against his nook, the pistol in your mouth, and you think he sees it in your eyes, the way he laughs at the choked off sound you make. Gods, you hate him, you hate _both_ of them, with a loathing so deep it couldn't even reliably be called pitch. "What do you think, Danny? Should we let her scream for you?"

"For the sea spirits," Eridan corrects, looking all sanctimonious about it, too. "Go ahead, then."

Relief—blessed relief, at the cold threat pulling out of your mouth, at being able to properly breathe and speak—is short-lived, because Eridan follows that flicker of freedom up with his bulge, the tip curling into you in a way that makes you, as they'd predicted, scream. It feels _good_, it feels awful, it's like someone took every nerve in you and set them to _ripple_.

You're dimly aware of a conversation taking place over you. Cronus might've asked how much he'd shoved into you, and Eridan might've told him it was barely even a full half of his bulge, and oh deeps, they might actually being trying to kill you. Your legs are shaking, and your gills flare open when you go to gasp for breath, even more proof that you're a non-threat (and they have to know it, there's not even a blade to you anywhere that you can feel), and you—

Eridan is _still_ pushing in, centimetre by centimetre, and somehow the _awful_ has subsided underneath the _stretch_ and the _good_, and you find yourself gasping, whimpering, giving him a whole range of sounds that you'd think were wholly unbecoming of a tyrian if you hadn't heard Meenah making them many a time. There's a hand in your hair, and it's...gentle, oddly gentle for a pair of fucking gamblignants, but Cronus is giving you a softer kind of attention as Eridan works you open and being caught between the two of them is a whole new kind of good-awful all its own.

He's fully sheathed inside of you by the time your thinkpan sorts all the different signals your body's getting out, the sting of salt air in fresh cuts, the gentle hand in your hair versus the gunmetal taste in your mouth and still so close to your fins, the nearly visible outline of a bulge in your nook. They seem to be waiting for you, a reaction, or something, by the time you rouse your mind around, and it takes one look at Eridan's eager expression, at Cronus' self-satisfied one, to set you on a course you're not sure you'll live to regret.

"I am a princess of the royal line," you tell them, ignoring the way you're gritting your teeth each time Eridan moves, the tangle of your hair as it's tugged by the ropes and loosened-softened again under Cronus' hand, "and if you continue this course of action, it might be the last time you ever pail anyone." They stare at you, unmoved, still waiting. Madness, apparently, decides that now is the best time to overtake you: "So you'd better make it fucking _count_."

They treat you to a matching set of bright eyes and wide grins, and Eridan's grip on your hips is nearly a solid thing, making you feel like you've been suspended halfway up in the air. Cronus—oh, gods, _Cronus_. He's got one hand on the back of your head, he's got two fingers pushing past your lips, prying your jaws open with barely a warning not to bite, and you don't even get to reply before he's unfurling right into your mouth. This is entirely different from the gun.

It's—and it _burns_ you to admit this—so, _so_ much better.

Now it's Cronus' turn to move achingly slow, the tip of his practiced bulge twisting and teasing your tongue as he guides more of himself down your throat. His grip's shifted to your shoulders, hard enough to lift you off the ground entirely, and you can feel the drape-drag of the net over you as—fuck, fuck, _fuck_—it's apparently Eridan's turn to pick up the pace, holding you still as he fucks deeper into you. Each thrust shoves you further down onto Cronus' bulge, and you shudder, wrapped up in the deeps damn nets you can't seem to forget about no matter what they do.

Another roll of his hips—Eridan's, you think they're Eridan's—and Cronus is sheath deep in you, maybe it was his hips after all—and you'd sob, if you could breathe or speak well enough to. The push-pull of both Amporas, keeping you so well trapped between them, is more overwhelming than the deep currents that run through the coldest parts of the sea. They're matched so damn well that you'd think they were one troll if you didn't know better. You're not sure you know better.

Claws dig into your skin, layering cuts over the ones their knives left, and you _do_ cry out, losing the sound around Cronus' bulge, tighten up around Eridan hard enough that he jerks into you and you can _feel_ that edge of awful approaching, like a burning pressure gaining too fast on the good, and you're so, so sure it'll overtake you—

You finish, and finish hard, all of your body unused to this kind of convergence of sheer feeling, overwhelming sensation, and in you, you still feel them twist, move, a push just a little too far, just far enough to sink you down under like it's your Luminance all over again.

The last thought you have, so uncertain that you're not sure it's real, is that your paint, your biolum, is even more beautiful when it catches in their eyes.

* * *

Time is an uneasy thing, and you yourself are ill prepared to craft a truce when you have so little control.

Also, you're thinking in archaic words and useless terminology, which means you must have been absolutely exhausted by the time you finally fell asleep.

The first thing that tells you it's not the usual combination of hard training and extra hours spent studying laws and logic and lore is the unexpected ache between your legs. The second is the roughness in your throat and the ache in your jaw, both of which are barely starting to heal, and the third, fourth, fifth things (saltwater sting in cuts all across your skin, dappled patterns of bruising that don't fit your usual training, the weight of _something_ cool-warm inside of you) and beyond pile in with such speed that you sit straight up.

Or you at least try to, and you get halfway there before someone tries to stop you and someone else tries to catch you. Things six and seven: Cool-warm, a match to the weight, on either side of you, and soft hands in your hair.

"What the fuck," you manage, and one of them gets water to your lips before you can say anything else. Arguing is a possibility, but you're _thirsty_, and you still need to blink sleep and, apparently, the haze of sex, out of your eyes. Instead, you settle for a bleary glare, and hope you seem a lot more intimidating than you actually feel.

"Evenin, princess." This is from Eridan, who is looking far more cheerful than he has any right to. He's snuggled up against your side, and apparently the one who caught you. He's also just...casually _reading_ something, and looking nothing like a marauding pirate asshole. You bare your teeth at him, then go back to drinking your water. "Hah, alright, fair enough. Cro?"

Cronus, who is pressed up on your other side, and apparently the one who stopped you, shifts around to get you a little more comfortable. You snarl at him, right up until he tugs a blanket (your blanket, apparently) up around you. It's soft, and warm, and you decide to hold off on attacking him for a little bit longer. "You're a little dehydrated, but you heal well. Apparently tyrians glow in their sleep, or something, or maybe that's part and parcel with the healing process. How're you feeling, Feferi?"

"I'm going to kill you both the second you turn your backs," you announce, and they exchange a look over the top of your head. "What?"

"We can't apologize," Eridan says, and his tone's philosophical. "It'd be like spittin on the gift we meant for the sea spirits." You'd growl at him, but he's picked up one of your legs and starting applying another layer of some kind of healing salve, and, well, it feels _nice._

"You'd consider apologizing for the best fuck either of us have had in sweeps save ourselves?" Now Cronus almost sounds offended, and you'd go after _him_ despite the fact that it's apparently a compliment if he hadn't somehow procured a hairbrush fast enough to start brushing the tangles out of your hair before you could. "It's a seadweller _tradition_, anyway, and she was on her luminance, she ought to know enough about 'em to know that."_  
_

"I'm _right here,_" you say, and oh no, fuck, wrong thing to say. They're both nuzzling at you, now, in between all of the other attention you're getting. "And I've never—" Actually, wait. It's a distant, foggy memory, a book Meenah had waved in your face with a smug grin and informed you was _important_ and _traditional_ and _obviously_ too old for you, and you, a scant few steps behind her in maturity, but more than a couple sweeps in age (only two and a _bit_, you'd been half a sweep from seven to her nine at the time) had snuck around behind her back to get it.

Immediately, your face blooms pink, and the Ampora boys grin at each other over your head. "So you _have_ heard of it, then, have you?" Eridan looks far too damn excited about this, and you elbow him in the ribs. "Ow, hey. So c'mon, are you still gonna kill us?"

"No," you mumble, tugging the blankets further up. "I guess not. Maybe."

"Well I've sent a message to Meenah saying that we've got you and we'll drop you off whenever you want to go once we've made the next port we're bound for. Or you can swim back, that's an option too, but not until you're back up to full strength." He drops a kiss in your hair, and you think your fins actually catch on fire. "For one, it'd take a while—we've made good time, thanks to your help—and for two, we'd like to have you around a while longer."

"You know _Meenah_."

He snorts, the brush in your hair going still as he tilts his head to consider what little he can see of your expression. "Really? That's the thing you're most surprised about?" When you nearly take a chunk out of his arm, he has the audacity to _laugh_. "Fine, fine, alright. Yeah, we go way back."

Eridan shifts you and himself completely, leaving Cronus at your back (you're shocked, when you don't flare up defensively, or try to get away) and himself at your front, the better to check the rest of your hurts. "So? What are you thinkin? Do you wanna stay?" He's still looking far too eager and excited for your tastes, but dealing with unbridled enthusiasm that isn't your own (or Meenah's...very particular variety) can be tricky. Case in point, the longer you draw out not replying, the more his resemblance to a kicked woofbeast increases. "Fef—"

"Oh by the fucking deeps," you mumble, because now they're onto _nicknames_, "fine! Fine. For _now_. I'll stay for _now_, and I still hate you both, and Meenah, and I _will_ kill you in your sleep if you don't watch it, traditions or no."

You're going to have to rearrange so many deeps damned schedules, and plans, and stars and fucking _seas_ there's not even a way to count how much political damage Meenah will do without you to rein her in. But Eridan and Cronus bundle you up again, despite attempted kicks and many complaints, and your resolve to resurrect whatever bastard came up with that one _ritual_ just so you can kill them again, messily, maybe fades. Just a little bit.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Drone Season, auxanges! I've read pretty much everything you've ever written, even the stuff in fandoms I don't know anything about, and I love all of it. I hope this is something you'll enjoy!


End file.
